Mission Mission

To: Mission Mission
From: Eric

Body:
They’re FINALLY paving the sidewalk on Valencia today!!!!  I could hardly contain myself when I saw it.

Gaucho bandleader, Tom Cruise impersonator, and my upstairs neighbor Dave Ricketts (hey have you seen his guitar?) will be teaching an 8-week Gypsy Jazz guitar course at the new mission music school Zambaleta in January. You’ve probably seen Gaucho rockin’ those Django Reinhardt hits every Wednesday 8-10pm for the past 6 years (!) at Amnesia.

This class begins January 5, 2010 and meets every Wednesday at 1pm for 8 weeks for $150. Join this gypsy jazz guitar class to learn this distinct style. Learn the ‘la pompe’ strumming style and percussive playing techniques for rhythm guitar. Then switch gears to develop lead guitar skills. For this function, you will work on soloing using chromaticism, arpeggios, and glissandos. A guitar is required for this class.

After this class, you will play circles around that weird rocker dude in the mission. I occasionally play this stuff and I can confirm that it gets the ladies attention. Granted they are mostly senior citizens who want to feel how firm my arms are.

Django did all this with two fingers, by the way:

If that’s not your style, there are a ton of other classes being offered at Zambaleta, including Arab Oud. Not as cool as the Ultra Oud-Harptar, but halfway there!

You guys!  Look!  Sexpigeon spotted Dick Chicken in Palo Alto!

Now, either Dick Chicken has gone bi-coastal, or some buttmunch of a Stanford student is fucking with us by way of half-assed Dick Chicken scrawl in sharpie.

Ugh.  I can’t tell which is worse.  Go home, Dick Chicken.

Troy Holden has a nice little write up about the Roxie Theater.

Click on the pic if you want to read it.

Thanks.

If you’re interested in hearing more and being heard on San Francisco’s new PayDayPlus SF loan, or just near Capp Street this Thursday, the New America Foundation is holding a community conversation about said loan. The conversation is called Springing the Debt Trap, and in attendance will be, among other local financial notables, our City Treasurer, José Cisneros.

From the website:

Sold to consumers as short-term relief during a cash crunch, pay day loans carry interest rates of over 400 percent and catch working people with a steady source of income in a long-term debt trap.

On December 17th at 11:30am, San Francisco City leaders, in partnership with local credit unions, will help relieve this burden on hardworking San Franciscans by launching PayDayPlus SF, a low cost emergency loan available to City residents at 13 locations.

Weigh in at the Mission Neighborhood Center, 320 Capp St.

There’s a metric fuckton of bands playing today at ATA celebrating their 25th anniversary. BBQ starting now and music at 1pm. Get your ass down there! Hopefully the sun comes out and doesn’t fake us out like it did yesterday. WTF sun? It was like “hey it’s a nice day”… sike! HAIL TIME. 992 Valencia St.

Saw this guy doing his thing last night at the Lab (16th and Capp). WTF dude, why don’t you play an instrument that actually exists?

But seriously, Jozef Van Wissem is the best one-of-those-players I have ever seen. According to Jozef’s wikipedia, the instrument is a Renaissance lute and his current approach is to write out traditional Baroque pieces backwards and add his own themes and variations. If I had to describe the sound, it’s like God barfing a golden slip-n-slide into James Hetfield’s brain while he’s vacationing at his summer home south of Tajikistan. Check out this vid of him that I recorded on my fashion/social accessory informationPhone:

In case you missed the post from the other day, bags of brew are all the rage in China these days.  For seventy two US cents, you can knock back 5 beers in a Chris Daly disapproved receptacle.  Since I know you all were curious how the hell you drank from these, you’re supposed to impale your beer with a straw and share with friends.  Beyond the style points, the real benefit of this setup is that you have a place to put your vomit in afterwards.  Bag o’ Brew: where have you been all my life?

Anyways, since this isn’t a blog about China, you can follow all the oriental action on the other blog that I otherwise never have a reason to update and no one reads in general.

P.S. – When I get back to the Mission, I want to open a bar that only serves beer in plastic bags.  Good idea / bad idea?

Oh shit, son! It’s getting hella steamy inside Cha-Ya tonight. If the vegetarian Japanese restaurant is a-rockin’ don’t come knockin’!

Btw as a representative of the Asian culture I should inform you that in fuedal Japan serving a neighboring family vegetarian sushi was an act of war.